Fatio was born as
Victor Fatio de Beaumont in
Geneva to lawyer Gustave Fatio de Beaumont and Suzanne Françoise. His interest in animals was aroused in childhood, when he was accompanied his father on hunting trips. Fatio studied
physiology in
Zurich,
Berlin and
Leipzig where he studied under Ernst Heinrich and Eduard Weber to receive the degree of a
Doctor of Philosophy with a thesis titled
De avium corpore pneumatic (1860). In 1861 however, he almost forgot his physiology knowledge due to a
typhoid fever illness. After his recovery he went to
Paris in 1862 to participate in the courses of
Henri Milne-Edwards (1800–1885) and Claude Bernard at the
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, where he studied zoology. He also studied zoology at Zurich under Oswald Heer and Heinrich Frey. Fatio married Anne Germaine, daughter of banker Alphone Turrettini in 1865. When
Phylloxera invaded
Switzerland in 1874, Fatio made extensive studies and initiated the world's first congress for the prevention of the grapevine pest which took place in
Lausanne in 1877. The results of his studies and the congress were published in his work
État de la question phylloxérique en Europe en 1877 in 1878. Furthermore, he wrote several publications about
Phylloxera in
Switzerland and in
Savoy. Between 1869 and 1904 he worked on the
Faune des Vertébrés de la Suisse was released, a comprehensive work with six volumes about the mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish species of Switzerland. Together with
Théophile Rudolphe Studer (1845–1922), Victor Fatio published the
Catalogue des oiseaux de la Suisse ("Catalog of the Swiss birds"), of which only the first three booklets were released between 1889 and 1901. Further sixteen volumes were released by other editors until 1956. Fatio described several animal species including the
Albock (
Coregonus wartmanni alpinus, later reclassified as full species
Coregonus fatioi by
Maurice Kottelat in 1997), the
Pfarrig (
Coregonus confusus), the
Autumn brienzlig (
Coregonus albellus), or the
Alpine pine vole (
Microtus multiplex). ==Publications==